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First Thursday Fiction Book Group: Thursday, March 5, 10 am Fitzgerald Room Second Thursday Fiction Book Group: Thursday, March 12, 10 am Fitzgerald Room |
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The Japanese Lover : a novel
by Isabel Allende
As penance for her life filled with material possessions and great wealth, the eccentric 80-year-old Alma Belasco decided to spend the rest of her days at Lark House, a senior retirement community. Alma hired Irina, an employee at Lark House, as a secretary. Irina soon began helping Alma’s grandson, Seth, compile a family history. The two soon discovered that Alma had a secret Japanese lover in her life.
It was only after Irina Bazili began working at the Lark House that she began to find peace in her life. She not only had her full time job but also worked part time for Alma helping that lady with chores she could no longer do and providing secretarial services. Irina additionally agreed to help Alma and her grandson, Seth, compile a family history. As the two got to know Alma’s routine better, they noticed she received a box of flowers and a letter in a yellow envelope each week. She also took strange, often spur of the moment trips away from Lark House. The two believed Alma was meeting Ichimei Fukuda, a Japanese man with whom she’d been having an affair off and on all during her life.
Meanwhile, Seth fell in love with Irina, who was an emigrant from Moldova, but could not get her to return his affection. After Irina was visited at Lark House by an FBI agent, Catherine Hope confronted Irina about her haunting past. It was with Cathy’s urging that Irina told Seth about the sexual abuse she’d received from her stepfather when she first came to America and the photos and videos that he’d sold of her.
After she’d lived at Lark House nearly three years, Alma’s health began failing. She was having chest pains and often grew confused. This didn’t stop her from taking one last trip. On the way home from her trip Alma crashed her car. She died of her injuries a few days later in the hospital. While Irina was sitting with Alma the last night of her life, Irina saw a Japanese man whom she believed was Ichimei come into the room. It was only later that Seth told Irina it couldn’t have been him because Ichimei had died of a heart attack several years prior.
Through the course of the novel the author weaves the stories of the lives of Alma; Nathaniel, who was her cousin and later her husband; Ichimei; and Irina as those lives developed over nearly a century. Major themes in the story include social class, materialism and enduring love. The story also touches on World War II, the imprisonment of the Japanese Americans in America, homosexuality, interracial marriages, sexual abuse and its aftermath, emigration, abortion, generosity, affluence and the depravity of man.
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Mistress of the Ritz : a novel
by Melanie Benjamin
Nothing bad can happen at the Ritz; inside its gilded walls every woman looks beautiful, every man appears witty. Favored guests like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Coco Chanel, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor walk through its famous doors to be welcomed and pampered by Blanche Auzello and her husband, Claude, the hotel’s director. The Auzellos are the mistress and master of the Ritz, allowing the glamour and glitz to take their minds off their troubled marriage, and off the secrets that they keep from their guests—and each other.
Until June 1940, when the German army sweeps into Paris, setting up headquarters at the Ritz. Suddenly, with the likes of Hermann Goëring moving into suites once occupied by royalty, Blanche and Claude must navigate a terrifying new reality. One that entails even more secrets and lies. One that may destroy the tempestuous marriage between this beautiful, reckless American and her very proper Frenchman. For in order to survive—and strike a blow against their Nazi “guests”—Blanche and Claude must spin a web of deceit that ensnares everything and everyone they cherish.
But one secret is shared between Blanche and Claude alone—the secret that, in the end, threatens to imperil both of their lives, and to bring down the legendary Ritz itself.
Based on true events, Mistress of the Ritz is a taut tale of suspense wrapped up in a love story for the ages, the inspiring story of a woman and a man who discover the best in each other amid the turbulence of war.
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